By Alex McCuaig

Barnes townhall

“Lively meeting” at MLA town hall

Nov 7, 2019 | 11:08 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes got an earful from the more than 100 constituents who showed up to his town hall meeting Thursday night as a large group of the city`s provincial civil servants questioned the direction the UCP government is taking.

“A lively meeting. People who genuinely care about Alberta, care about our future who want to be involved in the government process and it was good to hear everybody’s opinions and everybody’s ideas,“ said Barnes.

One of the biggest themes of complaint was the decision for the government to take over control of the Alberta teachers` pension fund which numerous educators in attendance questioned the logic of.

“The government has decided to have their pensions under AIMCo (Alberta Investment Management Corporation) and the government is showing there is strong reasons for that financially,“ said Barnes. “And at the end of the day when the taxpayers are responsible for it, that suggests we need some oversight.“

However, Barnes did commit to raise the issue with Premier Kenney and the UCP cabinet.

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But the president of the Medicine Hat and District Retired Teachers` Association called the move a “pension grab“ adding teachers were having a say in how the pension was managed.

“And now that say has been taken away,“ said Mel Deydey. “I think there is a lot of mistrust now of the government. There were things we were told that were going to happen and did happen and then there were things which were never said and all of a sudden, they were sprung upon us.“

Barnes faced a barrage of questions regarding decisions of the UCP government which many of the public sector workers in attendance said will affect frontline services in health and education. Many highlighted that there were UCP commitments that wouldn`t happen.